Today is when America celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Junior's birthday, so I thought it would be an appropriate day to discuss a cultural change in America over the polite terminology used to identify what might be called characteristics of (take your pick) race, ethnicity, or cultural identity. I'll warn you from the start, however, that this is not the usual discussion most people would associate with today's holiday, but rather something which has left me scratching my head trying to figure out the reasoning behind. I will begin with one of the usual discussions people have today, and then branch off from there, in an attempt to relate it all in a loose fashion to Dr. King's holiday.

Ready? Here we go. Race does not exist. There is only one race -- the human race. In scientific taxonomy, "race" is not even a category. Humans are, in descending order, part of the animal kingdom, the vertebrate phylum, the class of mammals, the order of primates, the hominid family, the genus homo, and the species sapiens. There is no "race" in that list. All humans can interbreed with one another, meaning we are all the same species. Period.

Race is a social construct, not a biological one, in other words. Meaning that society can come up with whatever divisions it deems appropriate, but which also have no accurate scientific basis (even at the subspecies level).

Discussing racial identity and racial politics is fraught with pitfalls and historical hangovers (most of which are rather demeaning, at best). Not to mention inaccuracies, which also abound. A dark-skinned Jamaican who moves to America might be surprised to be labeled "African-American," since his cultural and ethnic identity is (if you want to use a geographic term) more Caribbean than African. This is unfortunate, but stems from the history of what the "polite society" term is for dark-skinned Americans. In rough historical order, this would be: negro, colored, black, Afro-American, person of color, and (currently) African-American. Each term, in its time, was the "proper" term to use in polite conversation. We all know the most common "improper" term, which is so heavily weighted with baggage and hatred that it is now only euphemistically used in polite conversation ("the N-word"). Nevertheless, Americans have settled on a geographical term (for the time being -- in another generation or two "African-American" will quite likely be seen as outdated and only exist in legacy form, the way that, for example, the "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People" is seen today).

Part of this is the cultural ignorance of Americans. To most Americans, there are only a few countries within the continent of African which are even distinguishable from one another. Barring wars we're currently fighting (or involved in, or interested in), there are really only two countries in Africa that any average American could even locate on a map -- Egypt and South Africa. That latter one is the easiest, because it gives a big clue to its location right there in its name. But how many of us could reliably place countries like Chad or Mali on a map? We simply don't make mental distinctions between African countries in the same way we do with, say, Europe. What is the difference between a Kenyan and an Algerian? Most Americans would be stumped.

There are historical reasons for this, stretching all the way back to early colonialism. Americans also (for the most part) have a very limited distinction between South Americans -- we tend to lump all of them together, as well, although not as universally. We do have some knowledge of the differences between a Columbian and a Brazilian, but would be hard-pressed to describe the differences between people from Uruguay and Paraguay. The bigger South American countries are more noticeable to Americans, in other words, but at some point, we just use the generic "South American" as a generalized description.

There's a side issue here as well, with the term "American." Technically, anyone from either North or South America is an "American," but that's not the way we think when we hear the term. We even exclude people on our own continent from this designation, because we have appropriated it to mean "citizens of the United States of America." This can be excused for linguistic reasons, since it'd be hard to come up with another designation that is as easy to say ("United Statesians" just doesn't trip off the tongue, in other words). Within our own continent, then, there are four designations routinely used in the U.S. -- "American" (meaning United Statesians), "Canadian" (those friendly folk north of the border), "Mexican" (our neighbors to the south), and "Central American" (because who can keep track of anything between Mexico and Panama?).

By a process of elimination, I have finally arrived at my main point. Two points, really, both of which bug me. The first is that there are only six continents. Africa, Antarctica, Australia, North America, and South America are the first five. "Eurasia" is the sixth. There is no Europe and there is no Asia, in the same way that Pluto is no longer called a planet. There is just one giant continent, from Siberia to Portugal. Europe is a cultural designation, not a geographic one. You could call Europe a "subcontinent," in the same way that India is routinely described, but that's as far as you can really take it, geographically-speaking. Again, how many of us could, if given a map with geographic features (but no country borders), properly identify where Europe ends and Asia begins? If one mountain range is enough to divide a continent, then we'd wind up with a lot more than seven continents, to put this another way.

But, historically, we have differentiated Europe from Asia. Russia, for instance, has always prided itself on being a European country, even though the bulk of its landmass lies in Asia. Go figure. But Americans don't usually genericize people from Europe in any way. We see people from France as French, not "European." Same goes for Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Brits, and all the rest. Culturally, they are pigeonholed by the country they hail from, not continentally.

Now, I'm not trying to make a point about why this is so -- a subject which would take far longer than one column to explore. There are historic and cultural reasons for this, let's just let it go at that. I mention it only because Americans' hyperspecificity over mentally classifying Europeans is much more prevalent than for any other continent (even though Europe is... hmmph... not actually a continent).

But if Americans routinely exercise a subconscious continental elitism towards Europe -- giving each country individual recognition that we don't extend to other continents -- then why is the trend towards Asia moving in the opposite direction?

Historically, the term "Oriental" was used to describe people from what was then called the Far East. But the oriental/occidental division is now seen as not proper for polite conversation (this actually happened quite a while back, I should mention). We then moved to more geographic terminology -- closer to the way we think of Europeans, in fact. Americans identified (and differentiated between) Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Mongolians, Vietnamese, and Indians, for instance. Americans looking for a restaurant would routinely use such terms to describe these individual cuisines, to give perhaps the easiest example.

This didn't extend to all of Asia, though. Russians living on their Pacific Coast were thought of as "Siberians" more than "Russians," for example. But for the most part, the trend in certain parts of Asia was in the opposite direction, towards identifying people as members of whole regions, such as "Indochina."

But now, for some strange reason, labels such as Chinese, Japanese, and Indian are falling out of favor, as culturally Americans are now using the generic "Asian" instead. To me, at least, this doesn't make a lot of sense. It seems we're going backwards here, not forwards.

If the ultimate measure of respect is to treat individual ethnicities and countries as individual groups worth recognition (Irish, Mexican, Egyptian), and if lumping everyone together into a generic term is less respectful (Central American, African), then why are we moving from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean into the genericized "Asian"? Japanese culture and identity has virtually nothing to do with Indian culture and identity, but both are now routinely labeled "Asian" as if they shared some commonality.

The term is rather exclusive, as well, because it only extends so far west. Once you leave the Indian subcontinent, people become no longer "Asian" but rather "Middle Eastern." Again, Americans tend to lump everyone from the Mediterranean to roughly Afghanistan or Pakistan into this group, and most Americans would be puzzled by anyone saying: "Let's go get some Asian cuisine -- I'm craving falafel." So in reality, "Asian" is not being used for "everyone from Asia," but instead roughly for "everyone south of Russia, east of the Middle East, and north of Australia."

This seems rather baffling, because we've roughly returned to where we started. The overlap isn't perfect, but "Asian" seems to be used close to the way "Oriental" once was. Why one is demeaning and one is the newly-acceptable term in polite conversation is inexplicable. From "Oriental" we moved to differentiating between individual countries and cultures, so why are we now moving back? Why is Chinese food and Korean food now just Asian food? I have no idea.

Perhaps it is just political correctness trying to be overly sensitive -- that's really the only reason I can think of, but I truly don't know. Are terms like Japanese-American and Indian-American now seen as slurs by members of these groups? If so, this is a fairly recent development, which is why I thought it was worth discussing today.

I really have no answers to give, and I do realize this is not the usual racial/cultural conversation that takes place on Martin Luther King's birthday. But race is culturally defined, meaning that American culture makes up its own rules for politely discussing it as we go along. For the most part, however, this has been a movement towards the goal of greater recognition for individual cultures and ethnicities, which is seen as a matter of respect. It has historically moved from terminology which is now considered degrading (or even obscene) towards celebration of individual cultures in the most respectful and non-generic terms possible. So why are we going backwards for Asians? Do Vietnamese-Americans and Chinese-Americans and Korean-Americans consider this a step forward, or a step back? Again, I have no idea -- I admit my own cultural ignorance.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant